of one of the foreign regiments, the Royal-Allemand, the
people rose, clamoring for arms, fabricated pikes, plundered the arsenal
of the Hotel des Invalides, and moved on the Bastille as by a common
impulse. The governor, the Marquis de Launey, had made the best
preparations for defence that he could, but he had only one hundred and
fifteen men under his command, and these but little disposed to make a
good stand; at the end of a combat of several hours, they forced him to
capitulate, on the solemn promise of the besiegers that their lives
should be spared,--a promise which was not kept. It is rather as the
destruction of a hated instrument of tyranny than as a feat of arms that
the French celebrate this event,--which inaugurated the long series of
acts of bloodshed of the Revolution.

This news was received with such consternation at Versailles that the
king commenced his half-hearted attempts to accept the situation and
secure the friendship of his people. The next day, a royal courier
announced to the inhabitants of Paris that, "relying upon the love and
fidelity of his subjects," he had ordered the troops to leave the
vicinity of the capital and of Versailles. The Assemblee sent a
deputation of eighty members to Paris to confirm the news, there was
universal rejoicing, a _Te Deum_ at Notre-Dame, illuminations in the
evening, Lafayette was appointed general of the Parisian militia and
Bailly mayor of the city. On the 17th of July, the king made his famous
visit to the Hotel de Ville, was received by the new mayor and all the
officers of the corporation, assumed the new tricolored cockade--with
sufficient unwillingness,--and in response to the tumultuous
acclamations of the crowd, swearing to defend his "legitimate
authority," made them a little speech: "My people can always rely upon
my love." "Louis might, on this day, have regained all hearts; but he
was in nowise the man required for such times. The Revolution continued
in his presence." On his return to Versailles, he consented to dismiss
his cabinet of ministers and to recall Necker.

But misery and hunger were prevalent in Paris, and throughout the
provinces the peasants had begun to burn convents and chateaux; the
murder of former officers of the crown and the parading of their heads,
and even of their hearts, through the streets had begun in the capital.
In the celebrated sitting of the night of the 4th of August, the
delegates of the nobility and the clerg